Forums

New Printer-Friendly and PDF Options on Case Central

Sarah McBride — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:05:00 GMT

We're pleased to let you know about two new Case Central enhancements that will make it easier for you to view, print, and save your case notes. Now when you use Case Search to review a case online, two links display beneath the case number that you can click to generate a printer-friendly and PDF version.

We've also made some improvements to the overall layout of your case notes; we hope you like the changes! As a reminder, your cases are confidential so only members of your organization who have Blackbaud.com accounts can view your cases. For more information about Case Central, take a look at Case Central Help.

Administrative Advice: Sharing Dashboard Panels

Douglas Clinton — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:01:00 GMT

In The Raiser’s Edge, Dashboard is a way to get a quick overview of information in your database. On a Dashboard page, you can put up to 255 panels of summarized information on to track the progress or performance of your campaigns, funds, appeals, gifts, solicitors, memberships, events, proposals, volunteers, or actions.

Unlike records, queries, exports, and reports, Dashboard pages aren't automatically made available to other database users. Dashboards are specific to each user, so additional steps are necessary in order to share a dashboard you've created with another user, or to let them share one with you.

To give a user the right to share dashboards, begin by logging into The Raiser's Edge as a user who has rights to Security, such as the Supervisor user. Once you have logged into The Raiser's Edge, go to Administration, Security, and select the Security Group that you want to give the ability to view shared dashboards. In the Security Group window, check Dashboards in the Group Privileges panel. This will activate the Options button to the right. Click the Options button, then mark the Allow to Share Dashboards checkbox, click OK, then Save and Close the User Group.

Now, go to Dashboards and select the dashboard to share. Click the Sharing button in the upper right-hand corner of the dashboard screen, move the appropriate Security group over to the Selected column and click OK.

Now users from the group with whom you shared the dashboard cab go to Dashboards, click Select Shared Dashboards, and select any Dashboards that have been shared.

You can also find these steps in Knowledgebase solution BB29912.

Who’s this Luhn guy and where’d he get that check digit?

Brian Crawford — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:58:00 GMT

Andy Sarosy, software architect for Blackbaud Direct Marketing, writes:

As you may already know, we introduced Finder Number Check Digits a few releases ago. Since then, I've had requests for details around the algorithm used to generate the check digit. The simple answer is that we use the industry standard Luhn Algorithm (details here, courtesy of Wikipedia). The algorithm is more commonly known as Mod 10, or Modulus 10, so you'll likely hear that term used.

Out in the wild there are a number of variants to the Luhn Algorithm, so in the interest of being as transparent as possible I put together a spreadsheet that explains the algorithm and generates a check digit when you enter a finder number.

Side note: As of Blackbaud Enterprise CRM 2.5, you will find Finder Number Settings in the task list under Marketing and Communications / Acquisition and Segmentation / Finder Files.

Welcome to Distance Learning Leanne Vitanzo

Diana Himes — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:24:00 GMT

The Distance Learning team is excited to introduce you to the newest member of our team, Leanne Vitanzo. Leanne's primary responsibility is to educate customers on our products in our online learning environment. We are all very excited to have Leanne join the Distance Learning team and one of the first things we asked her to do was tell us all a little about herself. Here's what she had to say: Question: What can you tell us about this picture? Answer: This picture was taken at a friends...(read more)

Tracking Transactions

Jennifer Maroney — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:53:00 GMT

Each time you post transactions to or in General Ledger (GL), the system creates an audit report called the Trace Report. This report is made up of two sections, Detail and Summary.

The Detail section contains a line-by-line printout of the journal entry as it's entered. This includes the account number, account description, item description, three reference fields, and debit and/or credit amount. You can even add optional information such as data items or units and rates if it's collected by the journal.

The Summary section summarizes all items by account number for the entire transaction. It includes the business date, calendar date, transaction total, and ID of the operator that posted the transaction. The Summary section also includes Created by Posting accounts.

To view or print a Trace Report, select File, Print Manager from the menu bar. In the Print Manager window, highlight the Trace Report and click Open. All Trace Reports begin with CS followed by the system number. If you would like to print the report, select File, Print from the Print Manager tool. When viewing the Trace Report after each posting, which I recommend, verify the:

Journal used to post the entry
Amount of the entry
Type of entry (debit or credit)
Description of the entry in the Detail section

Enjoy your audit trail. Talk to you soon!

Upcoming Web Seminars 2/8/10 - 2/12/10

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:03:00 GMT

Several times a week, we offer free, hour-long web seminars on our website. The seminars usually focus on Blackbaud products or best practices for nonprofits.

To register, select Web Seminars from the Events menu on our website, find a seminar you want to attend, and click Register Now. Once you submit the enrollment form, you’ll receive an email with instructions for viewing the online presentation, as well as the telephone access number. If you’d like to enroll for additional seminars, click Continue after you fill out the enrollment form.

Here are some of the web seminars coming up next week:

February 10:
The Financial Edge for Small-Office Organizations, 2:00 p.m. ET: Learn how to manage budgets, allocate grants, and run the reports you need.

February 11:
Time to Upgrade – Moving Beyond Blackbaud NetSolutions, 2:00 p.m. ET: Join us to learn about Blackbaud's Internet Solutions and how they can provide you with all the functionality you currently have plus a more up-to-date look and added functionality.

Have a super weekend!

Automatically Reverse Transactions

Jennifer Maroney — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:33:00 GMT

Have you ever seen the Reverse on column in Journal Entry and wondered what it's for? When adding transactions in a batch, you have the ability to automatically reverse transactions by adding a date in the Reverse on column. The only hitch is that you must enter a Reverse on date that is in the future of the posting date entered.

Why is a future post date required and how would automatically reversing a transaction be helpful? I'm glad you asked. There are some situations in which an automatic journal entry reversal will make your life simpler. Let's say you didn't receive a large invoice at the end of January, but you can reasonably estimate the amount. To show your board the impact on your financial statements, make a journal entry to accrue the invoice at the end of February debiting the expense and crediting a payable and enter the Reverse on date for March. By selecting to automatically reverse these entries in March of the same year, additional lines are created when posting, which reverse the journal entry in March. This results in your February financial statement including the estimated expense while the March financial statements don't. When the invoice is received, you can then enter it in March without the worry of duplicating the expense.

Talk to you soon!

Online Giving and Rapid Response Trends

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:54:00 GMT

The recent Haiti earthquake disaster has once again brought to the forefront the role that new giving channels play in helping those most affected. The combination of online giving and mobile giving were the first response channels of choice by donors. I will save the pros and cons of mobile giving for another blog post.

I did some research to look back at previous major events and the volume of online giving that took place. Blackbaud has online giving data going back to 1999 and that allows us to look at some historical trends. USA Today referenced some of these trends in their recent "More go online or text to donate for Haiti's quake victims" article.

The graph above shows the volume of online giving for the first five days immediately following each major event. This was based on approximately 3,300 nonprofit organizations that had online giving data for these time periods.

Online giving following the Haiti earthquake was 19% greater than response to the 2004 Asian Tsunami and 109% greater than Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The tsunami data begins on December 26, 2004, following the earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The Katrina data begins on August 29, 2005 when the hurricane made its second landfall in Louisiana. Online giving during the first give days following September 11, 2001 was less than 1% of what was given towards Haiti relief.

All of these events have a very long tail of online giving, but the purpose here was to look at the first few days when online giving serves a key role in raising money for relief. It should also be noted that there's a pareto distribution on the organizations receiving most of the donations. For each event, about 80% of the donations were received by 20% of the organizations.

A year-over-year comparison of organizations not specifically raising money for Haiti relief did not have any unusual difference in online giving in January 2010. Giving to organizations directly involved in Haiti relief were simply off the charts compared to previous time periods and other events in the analysis.

There are a few important points to make from all of this. First, nonprofits that had a plan in place to quickly respond online through web content, focused online giving, and email communication performed better than organizations that didn't. You cannot react fast enough to just be a fast follower. Things move too quickly, in particular how soon various media outlets begin referencing where people can donate online. If your nonprofit is involved in programs and services often related to disaster relief, then you better have a plan and resources in a staging mode. And every organization should have some kind of emergency communication plan that involves the use of the web.

Second, the response to these kinds of unfortunate events will only increase in the future. We are well beyond the tipping point of whether people will give online and that is now true for mobile giving in North America too. Several organizations reported system outages from other vendors and tools being used. Now would be a good time to ask about whether your system can handle even larger volumes. This is a situation where poorly built multi-tenant systems can knock down anyone using them, including those organizations not directly involved in relief efforts.

Finally, this might be the end of internal obstructionists that question the importance of online communication and giving. Remind them that it is a multi-channel world, even if your nonprofit serves other parts of the sector. And it may prompt some more serious discussions about how prepared organizations are for the future.

Check Number Vs. Control Number

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:40:00 GMT

Have you ever wondered the different between the check number and control number in Accounts Payable (AP)? If so, keep reading. The control number is an internal check number assigned by FW, where the check number is the number assigned by the user when the check is created. This is the basic difference; let's get into some more details:

The control number, assigned by FW, allows the system to track the check from the mark for Pay stage to the Cut stage, to the logged stage when the check number is assigned. You can find the control number in Print Manager on the OTCK###.L## file. The control number is made up of three parts, which prints on the check:

Run number
Internal check number
Form sequence number

Now that you are more familiar with the control number, let's move onto the check number, assigned by you. The check number prints on the final check register (OTREG) and posts to the General Ledger. It's also the number used to void and reconcile the check. Please note that the check number does not print on the check and cannot be viewed in Print Manager.

So, why have a control number and check number? When the checks are cut, the OTCK####.L## file is created in the Print Manager. The checks are printed based on the information in this file, which does not include the check number. The control number also gives you a continuous audit trail, unlike check numbers which can skip around.

Talk to you soon!

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks: Adding transactions to a Group of Records is so easy!

Allison Davis — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:19:00 GMT

Have you ever needed to add a one-time fee to a particular group of students? You can automatically add this fee to the group without adding the fee to records one at a time.

Adding transactions to a group is similar to adding a charge, and then copying it to the other records in a query. The key is grouping the records together using a field they have in common, such as grade level. For example, if all 5th graders will be going on a field trip and need to have a field trip fee added to their records, you can create a query using the criteria: Current Grade equals 5 to group the records. You can also add attributes to records for grouping purposes.

After you have your query, you can open the first record in the query, add a charge on the Activity tab, and save the transaction. After the charge is saved, select Transaction from the menu bar of the charge, and choose Add this Charge to a Group of Records. Select the query and check the box to ‘Skip the current record if they are included in the query.’ Select the desired options below and make sure to select ‘Preview Records Before Charges are Added.’ Then click Add Charges Now. This will pull up a preview, and records can be deselected if necessary. Then click ‘Add Charges Now.’

Now that you’ve added all the transactions at once, the only thing left is to decide what to do with all of your spare time!

Forums Roundup 2/3/2010

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:25:00 GMT

Here are the most popular Forums posts as well as unanswered posts from last week:

Most Popular Topics:

Unanswered Posts:

Blackbaud Announces Global Nonprofit Conference Schedule

Melanie Mathos — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:42:00 GMT

Charleston, S.C. (February 3, 2010) – Blackbaud, Inc., (Nasdaq: BLKB) today announced its global conference schedule, including the 2010 Blackbaud Conference for Nonprofits™ — North America on September 7 to 10 at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center, Washington, D.C. and the 2010 Blackbaud Conference for Nonprofits™ — Europe on October 11 to 12 at Victoria Park Plaza, London.

“We’re so excited to bring Blackbaud’s 11th annual North American Conference for Nonprofits to Washington D.C. this year and to once again hold our European Conference for Nonprofits, which has a strong focus on supporter relations, in London,” said Mary Beth Natarajan, Blackbaud’s director of communications. “This year’s conferences will provide unprecedented networking and learning experiences, partnering opportunities and fresh, new interactive sessions.”

Blackbaud’s 2010 Conference for Nonprofits — North America will provide nonprofit professionals with four days of specialized educational content and opportunities to network and interact with peers and nonprofit experts.

News You Can Use: Issue with The Raiser's Edge and Blackbaud Payment Service (BBPS) Resolved

Douglas Clinton — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:33:00 GMT

Yesterday, we identified an issue with The Raiser's Edge and the Blackbaud Payment Service, which caused the message Error: The Raiser's Edge cannot connect to the Blackbaud Payment Service. For the secure storage of new or edited credit card number information, The Raiser's Edge requires a connection to the Blackbaud Payment Service. Please check your internet connection and attempt to save the record again when editing or updating existing credit cards to appear when editing credit card data on constituent and gift records.

This issue has been addressed, and will no longer affect organizations who are running The Raiser's Edge 7.91 or above and who integrate with the Blackbaud Payment Service (BBPS). This is also documented in Knowledgebase solution A href="http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=content&id=BB709727" target=_new mce_href="http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=content&id=BB709727">BB709727.

Query Summary Fields

Jennifer Maroney — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:47:00 GMT

This is a quickie, but a goodie if you're not looking for details. In almost every query type, you'll find a Summary section on the Criteria and Output tabs. This section allows you to filter and display summarized information rather than each individual transaction in your query. Summary fields include Beginning Balance, Net Activity, Discount taken amount, Check count, Net Pay, Attendance accrued, and Year-to-date depreciation; the list goes on and on. You may be asking yourself, "How would summarized field help me?" Well it all depends on what you're looking for. Need a list of GL accounts with net activity greater than $1000, got it, a list of total charge amounts, check, Year to date depreciation for all assets, got that one too! I think you get the idea. To find the available fields, create a new query and click the plus sign next to Summary in the Available Fields frame.

Happy querying. Talk to you soon!

Your January Forums Roundup and Drawing Winner

Katie Infinger — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:08:00 GMT

Here's your forum roundup for January:

Last Month's Popular Posts:

Help out your colleagues by answering these posts:

January Forums Drawing Winner!!
Congratulations to our January winner, Liz Appleby from Manlius Pebble Hill School, who won a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate! We're running this promotion again in February, so be sure to contribute to the forums to be entered in next month's drawing!

Blackbaud's 2010 Conference for Nonprofits is on the Move

Christopher Donahue — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:44:00 GMT

For 10 years now, we’ve been bringing you Blackbaud’s Conference for Nonprofits, an event you have hopefully come to know as the ultimate nonprofit learning experience. This year, we’re making the Conference bigger and better than ever. And as we make improvements, our goal is to make the event more about YOU than ever before.

That’s why we’re hosting the Conference in Washington, D.C. this year. The event will take place September 7 – 10 at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center.

In D.C., you can expect to experience all of the things you have come to love about the Conference — four days of educational content dedicated to your specific needs and unprecedented opportunities to network and interact with your peers and industry experts.

Even better, the D.C. area will offer new and exciting benefits:

The expanded venue will enable us to offer 200 sessions — an increase of nearly double to previous years.
The location offers unparalleled accessibility, allowing more nonprofit professionals and experts to come and share their knowledge.
Decreased airfare costs and extremely competitive hotel rates will make it more affordable than ever to attend — especially because we’re keeping registration fees the same as last year.

We hope you are as excited as we are about exploring what Washington, D.C. has to offer. If you’d like to learn more about the Conference, please visit us online. You can also email us at conference@blackbaud.com with any questions.

We look forward to seeing you in D.C.!

What is a Created by Posting Account?

Jennifer Maroney — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:31:00 GMT

When you're entering transaction after transaction after transaction in a journal entry, it's inevitable that an account number may be entered incorrectly. But, what happens when you try to post? Instead of blocking the post or giving you an error, Blackbaud FundWare (FW) adds a Created by Posting account for the undefined account number. You'll find Created by Posting accounts are not just added when posting to an undefined account, it's created when:

A control account is incorrectly defined in a parameter. This usually occurs when a mask was used.
An auto due to/from account or other account required by a setup mask has not been defined.
An incorrect Closing ID was chosen when Posting Revenue to Expense in the Year-End Processing.

When a Created by Posting account is added, the account will be listed in the Summary section of the Trace report, which is created after posting. The next step is to determine if the account is valid or not. The answer determines your next step:

If the Created by Posting account is a correct account number, you'll need to change the description of the account and add a position one attribute.
Or
If the Created by Posting account is not correct, you'll need to make a manual journal entry to transfer the funds out of the Created by Posting account and into the correct account. Then, change the status of the Created by Posting account to inactive.

Talk to you soon!

Support Roundtable: The Raiser's Edge Open Forum Q&A (1/29)

Douglas Clinton — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:15:00 GMT

Here are the questions from the Q & A segment of our January 29th Support Roundtable, The Raiser's Edge Open Forum:

Q: What does the auto-distribute button do when you have a list of pledges and you want to apply the payment to 2 of them and the amounts are different.
A: The Auto-Distribute button will automatically distribute your payment evenly among the first pledges listed. The best method is to select each pledge that is being paid and enter the amount in the Amount Applied field.

Q: How do we register for additional roundtables? Do we need to register for each date individually or is there a meeting series we can use to register for the series?
A: Future Support Roundtables, will be announced on the Forums, The User's Edge Blog, and The User's Edge newsletter. You will need to register for each Support Roundtable individually.

Q: Is there a way, or is there a need to keep batches from gifts for any length of time?
A: Excluding recurring batches (batches you can commit over and over), there is not a programmatic reason to keep a batch. However, you may decide to keep a batch for historical and record checking purposes.

Q: Can you edit the defaults for batch entry?
A: Yes, you can edit the batch defaults by selecting Tools>Edit Batch Setup>Defaults or by changing the information in the Default row of the batch (first row). For more information, review Knowledgebase solution BB6570.

Q: Getting back to adding fields, how do you enter a field if it is NOT in the list available you showed?
A: To add additional fields to the batch, select Tools>Edit Batch Setup>Fields. Here you can add, remove, and order fields for the batch. For more information, review Knowledgebase solution BB47863.

Q: How does this happen automatically? I add fields to every batch, an example field would be reference. How do I get it there as an automatic field without the need to add after the fact?
A: The only fields that are automatically added to a new batch are required fields. If the field is not required, you can select the Load from Existing Batch button and search for the appropriate batch template to add the fields from the existing batch. For more information, review Knowledgebase solution BB520375.

Q: What is the best way to learn the complex issue of importing data?
A: There are several resources available to aid in learning Import. In Admin>Import, there are links to Help Files that provides information about the specific Import type. There is also a Basics of Importing Knowledgebase solution, BB58904, and an Import Basics online training class.

Why would I use Social Media?

Robert McAllen — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:41:00 GMT

So I've been a little bit lax (well a big bit lax) lately with my blog posts and I apologise for that. I've been busy over the last couple of months on various projects. Not least of which is the upcoming release of version 6.15 of Netcommunity - which I will talk about at length over the next couple of weeks.

I did find however a fantastic tool to really emphasise the importance of Social Media by Gary Hayes.

Gary has captured the essence of why we are doing this stuff. Who are you getting through to? What is the strength of this? How much of this stuff is out there? This shows us this in real time. For details of where these numbers are coming from click here.

Keeping it short today but more to come in the next few weeks especially around BBNC 6.15

News You Can Use: Important Information for Organizations who Integrate The Raiser's Edge with the Blackbaud Payment Service (BBPS)

Douglas Clinton — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:19:00 GMT

We have identified an issue in The Raiser's Edge that may cause the message Error: The Raiser's Edge cannot connect to the Blackbaud Payment Service. For the secure storage of new or edited credit card number information, The Raiser's Edge requires a connection to the Blackbaud Payment Service. Please check your internet connection and attempt to save the record again when editing or updating existing credit cards to appear when editing credit card data on constituent and gift records. This issue affects organizations who are running The Raiser's Edge 7.91 or above and who integrate with the Blackbaud Payment Service (BBPS).

To be notified when this issue is resolved, open Knowledgebase solution BB709727 and click subscribe below the solution title.

User Guide Guidance: January

Douglas Clinton — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:33:00 GMT

The user guides contain step-by-step instructions for using The Raiser's Edge. User guides are in Portable Document Format (PDF) which can be opened with Acrobat Reader and are available for download on the User Guides section of our website. The Raiser's Edge user guides are divided into the following categories:

Each month, we track how often each user guide is downloaded. Here are the User Guides that were downloaded the most last month:

The Query and Export Guide contains information on extracting information from The Raiser's Edge and exporting data to other software programs.
The Constituent Data Entry Guide teaches you how to properly set up constituent records.
The Gift Records Guide contains information and procedures related to adding, editing, and deleting gift records.
The The Raiser's Edge 7 for Beginners is a lighthearted, informal introduction to The Raiser’s Edge.
The Mail Guide explains how to use each tab on all mail tasks in Mail to produce mailings.

You can also navigate to the user guides directly from The Raiser's Edge by selecting Help, User Guides.

The Salvation Army and Blackbaud Partner to Support Haiti Relief Online Fundraising

Melissa Dodge — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:51:00 GMT

Blackbaud, Inc., (Nasdaq: BLKB) today announced that it is partnering with The Salvation Army World Service Office to power its Haiti relief online fundraising efforts. The site, which is now live, is processing donations at https://donate.salvationarmyusa.org/.

The Salvation Army has had a presence in Haiti since 1950 and currently operates schools, clinics, a hospital, feeding programs, children's homes and church-related activities spread across two major facilities in Port au Prince, close to the epicenter of the earthquake. The Salvation Army continues to mobilize people and resources to assist with the international relief effort in Haiti. With the tremendous response from the public to this disaster, Blackbaud was asked to assist The Salvation Army with an unprecedented surge of online donations.

"We are working with partners like Blackbaud to maximize our ability to process donations that provide needed supplies to the people of Haiti," said Major George Hood, national community relations secretary. "We turned to our Blackbaud team to provide technology that we could count on to handle such tremendous volume. Blackbaud's rapid response helped us get our Haiti relief site up and running in a matter of hours, with no disruption to our fundraising efforts."

Blackbaud NetCommunity 6.15 - Release Preview

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:03:00 GMT

Blackbaud NetCommunity 6.15 represents a major step forward for our Internet Solutions based on thousands of hours of research, customer feedback, usability design, application development, testing, and validation.

The updates and new features in this release are another sign of Blackbaud’s commitment to improve our online solutions. From a technology perspective, BBNC 6.15 also represents a major milestone as the entire application has been migrated to Blackbaud’s next generation Infinity platform.

There are a few high level requirements for this upcoming release. BBNC 6.15 is a PA-DSS / PCI compliant application and requires clients to also be using The Raiser’s Edge 7.91 or Blackbaud Enterprise CRM 2.5. This release also requires and only supports Microsoft SQL 2008. Blackbaud OnDemand customers will have these requirements taken care of as part of their ongoing support.

Here are some highlights of what to expect in Blackbaud NetCommunity 6.15:

User Interface / Experience Enhancements: The first thing you will notice about BBNC 6.15 is an update of the entire user interface and navigation. A tremendous amount of feedback and usability testing has resulted in significant improvements throughout the program. There are also several user experience updates that will reduce time spent on tasks. Click here for a preview.

HTML Editor Changes: The HTML editor has been completely replaced with TinyMCE, an open source editor that is used in other tools like Joomla!, Drupal, Plone, and WordPress. The editor is both cross-platform and cross-browser compatible. BBNC remains the only nonprofit solution with admin tools that truly work on Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Multisite Functionality: The solution now supports multisite capabilities, including the ability to build parent/child relationships for multiple websites in the system. Your website always includes a default site and you can create an unlimited number of additional sites. These additional sites can be any combination of parent and child sites at any level in a hierarchy. You will notice some user interface changes to support multisite, include a new Organization Settings screen to manage global settings.

Users and Security Changes: The addition of multisite functionality also means some changes to users, roles, and security assignments. Security now includes four main components: Users, Roles, Task groups, and Security assignments. These changes not only deepen the overall capabilities of BBNC, but also make managing roles and security easier. When you upgrade to 6.15, your security data migrates to the new security automatically.

Form Engine: BBNC customers now have the ability to create online forms to collect information from website users. This will allow nonprofits to collect information online that doesn't need to be stored in their CRM system. The new Forms section allows you to create and manage forms, view the data, and export the collected information. The form creation tool offers a robust set of options, including the ability to create multi-step forms.

Online Fundraising Updates: The online donation form functionality has several updates in BBNC 6.15. This includes the ability to make pledge payments based on donor information in The Raiser’s Edge or Blackbaud Enterprise CRM. There are several other improvements around multiple designations, Gift Aid options for multi-geographic clients, and some other feature goodness.

Scheduled Email: You can now schedule emails to send to selected recipients at specific times. For example, you may want to send a renewal notice to members a month before their memberships expire. You can create a constituent query in The Raiser’s Edge or Blackbaud Enterprise CRM with all members. You then determine how often to run the email process. In this example, you may run the process on the first day of each month. At the scheduled time, BBNC merges the information in the list with the merge fields in the template and automatically distributes the email to recipients.

Online Address Lookup: Constituents now have the ability to have BBNC complete their address lookup after entering only their postcode. This new feature is for the UK market and the data is provided by Experian QAS. This process cuts down on address processing and dramatically will improve address accuracy and validity. This cuts down on invalid postage costs and manual data manipulation saving both time and money.

Best of the Rest: There always other tweaks, changes, and updates to improve the overall solution. BBNC 6.15 also continues previously released features like Addressee and Salutation support, improvements to data integration, and a long list of other updates.

Blackbaud NetCommunity 6.15 is now in controlled release and will go into general availability shortly. Stay tuned for future updates...

Sports and philanthropy - a great partnership

Rachel Hutchisson — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:22:00 GMT

Late last week, Blackbaud announced a new partnership with the Charleston Battery pro scocer team, a partnership that I think is pretty cool.

I guess I should issue a disclaimer upfront that I'm a HUGE soccer fan, a former player and referee, and -- much as I hate the label -- an oh so current soccer mom (with a Prius instead of the stereotypical minivan, thank you very much.)

Sports have always been a big part of my life, as has a commitment to give something back, making a positive mark on the world in my own small way. So you can just imagine how excited I was when Blackbaud decided to focus its partnership with the Charleston Battery on philanthropy.

Blackbaud and the Battery share many things -- Tony Bakker (the philanthropist who founded both organizations), a beautiful location on Daniel Island, SC,, and a passion for making a difference. What this partnership does is takes the combined strength and reach of both organizations and uses it celebrate and promote the good work done by Charleston-area nonprofits.

We're bringing life to this idea through a "Nonprofit of the Match" where one organization is honored at each of the Charleston Battery's 13 home matches. We're kicking things off (please pardon the pun) on March 13th when the Charleston Battery hosts its annual Carolina Challenge Cup, a tournament that pits three Major League Soccer teams against the Battery. (This year, MLS champions Real Salt Lake will be coming to town, along with DC United and Toronto FC).

It is our combined hope that, through our partnership, we will introduce the broad community that supports the Charleston Battery to the great work nonprofits are doing in the Lowcountry. And if any of those sports fans decide to donate their time, treasure or talent to these organizations, well, that'll be something else to celebrate.

For those of you who live in Charleston and might come out to a game (you should because it's a lot of fun), you'll see another aspect of the partnership in action -- Blackbaud employees working alongside the Battery staff, volunteering their time and serving their community.

We couldn't ask for a better partner than the Charleston Battery. From Tony Bakker and Andrew Bell, the club's CEO and president, respectively, to the staff and the team itself, the Battery family cares about making a difference, about what we like to say at Blackbaud...how service to others makes the world a better place.

Upgrading Blackbaud NetCommunity and the NetCommunity Plug-in

Matt Adams — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:00:00 GMT

When upgrading Blackbaud NetCommunity to a new version or patch, it is vital that the proper install files are run on the appropriate servers/workstations to ensure that the site runs smoothly and you are able to process transactions. Given the fact that Blackbaud NetCommunity integrates so tightly with other Blackbaud software, skipping a step in the installation instructions, or installing an incorrect file to the wrong server or workstation can result in installation errors or even bring your site down. Fortunately, we have the installation process documented within Knowledgebase solutions (links provided at the end of the article), so I won't be explaining the entire upgrade process. However, I would like to discuss the installation files you will need and where those files need to be installed.

If Blackbaud hosts The Raiser's Edge (RE), Blackbaud NetCommunity (BBNC), and, if necessary, The Education Edge (EE), the upgrade process is simple. Our hosting administrators notify you of the date and time of the upgrade and we perform all necessary upgrades for you automatically. You really don't need to worry about the installation process other than the fact that there may be some down time with your site during the installation, which is usually performed late at night or early in the morning. Your site is typically upgraded within 30 minutes. Our servers are in a controlled environment, running all of the necessary requisite applications, and our hosting administrators perform upgrades on a regular basis so they can quickly identify potential problems that may arise during the installation process.

If Blackbaud doesn't host your applications, or only hosts BBNC, the installation process becomes more complex, so knowing the installation files becomes essential. All of the install files for BBNC can be found on our downloads page. I recommend navigating there to follow along with the rest of this post. From the Downloads page, click the link for the version of BBNC that is available to you. Then, you will see two different installation files - one for the full version of Blackbaud NetCommunity in the left-hand column, and another for the Blackbaud NetCommunity Integration Plug-in located to the right.

The full version installation file needs to be run on the BBNC web server (if Blackbaud does not host BBNC for you) and/or the RE7 Web Services server. If Blackbaud hosts just BBNC for you, you will need to run the full version installation on just your RE7 Web Services server. If you host everything, the full install will need to be run on both the web server and the RE7 Web Services server. The recommended configuration for installing BBNC specifies that the RE7 Web Services be installed on a separate server from the BBNC web server, but the RE7 services may be installed on the same server in your current configuration. You can identify if the RE7 services are loaded on a server by looking for the RE7Service within IIS.

After the servers have been upgraded, the individual RE workstations will need to be updated with the new version of the NetCommunity Plug-in located in the right-hand column of the BBNC Download page. The NetCommunity Plug-in only needs to be installed on a workstation running The Raiser's Edge if individuals at the workstation will be processing NetCommunity transactions.

The NetCommunity Plug-in installation file should never be run on a server; it is intended only for end-user, Raiser's Edge workstations. If you have the NetCommunity Plug-in installed on the RE7 Web Services server prior to running the upgrade, the plug-in will be updated to the proper version when BBNC is updated. Running the stand-alone plug-in installation on a server will result in errors.

If you would like to install the NetCommunity Plug-in on the server, and the server does not currently have the plug-in installed, it should be enabled within the custom installation options of the full version installer. You would modify the existing installation for Blackbaud NetCommunity within Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel, keep the existing features that are currently installed, mark the checkbox for The Raiser's Edge Plug-in, and continue with the installation instructions within the installer. This will install the plug-in on the server, and the installation settings will remain in effect during the next upgrade so the plug-in will be updated to the proper version at the time of the next upgrade.

For more detailed information about upgrading Blackbaud NetCommunity, please see our Knowledgebase solutions:

- Important considerations prior to updating
- How to upgrade when Blackbaud NetCommunity is hosted by Blackbaud and The Raiser's Edge is hosted by your organization
- How to upgrade when Blackbaud NetCommunity and The Raiser's Edge is hosted by your organization

If you are interested in more information about our hosting services, please contact your account manager by calling 1-800-443-9441 or send an email to solutions@blackbaud.com.